Davit Bek or David Beg (; died 1728) was an Armenian military commander and the leader of an Armenian rebellion against invading Ottoman forces and implanted Safavid Muslim tribes in the mountainous region of Zangezur (today the Armenian province of Syunik and part of the province of Vayots Dzor). He was one of the most prominent military figures of the Armenian liberation movement of the 18th century. After the fall of the Safavids in 1722, Davit Bek established himself as the military leader of the local Armenians of Syunik and Kapan during the Ottoman Turkish invasion and the attacks of the local Muslim tribes. Davit was successful in preventing the various Muslim tribes from making proper territorial gains. In 1727, in order to put a halt to the Ottoman approach in the area, King Tahmasp II of Iran appointed Davit as the governor of the area, and gave him the right to administer the area as a vassal Armenian principality under Iranian control. Following his death in 1728, he was succeeded by his comrade-in-arms Mkhitar Sparapet as the leader of Armenian forces in Zangezur. Biography Little is known about Davit's early life. Most of what is known about him comes from the mid-eighteenth-century Armenian text titled Patmutʻiwn Ghapʻantsʻwotsʻ ("History of the Kapanians") by Ghukas Sebastatsi. Davit Bek was of noble lineage, stemming from princes of Chavndour (district of Kovsakan in southeastern Syunik), and had served the vali (i.e. viceroy)/king of Kartli, Vakhtang VI (Hosaynqoli Khan). Some eighteenth-century manuscripts write that Davit was a Georgian Armenian from Mtskheta, although at the time Armenians from Tiflis (Tbilisi) were frequently referred to as Mtskhetians. The Armenian Meliks, local feudal lords, had long been recognized as governors of the area by the Iranian shahs. In 1722 however, the Safavid state collapsed. Numerous Muslim tribes in the area were now competing for influence in the area. Peter the Great's steady advance south towards the Caucasus during the Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723 with a massive 30,000-strong army had revived hope among the Armenians and Georgians that Russian arms could help remove the region from Muslim dominion. Muslim misrule in the regions of Kapan and Artsakh (Karabakh) eventually provoked the Armenian meliks in 1722 to request military aid from Vakhtang. Vakhtang agreed to aid the meliks; he sent Davit Bek, reportedly one of his most capable officers, together with some 2,000 Armenian soldiers. Davit made the fort